A government that can make or break great fortunes invites a bruising and wasteful competition for its favor. It cannot be surprising, then, that those with the most — thus most to lose — assiduously seek favor from the state.

This is why the often heard Occupy Wall Street demand to get money out of politics will never happen. Politicians will be bought so long as they are for sale.

TV commercial that aired during one of the Republican primary debates turned my stomach. Rather than hiding passively-aggressively behind “numbers” and “levels”, these scared, sad people should be a little more direct. They should look potential immigrants in the eye and say: “You are not welcome here. If you come near our borders, we will release the hounds and they will tear you apart.”

Immigrants are not just employment black holes that come here to suck up jobs. Immigrants also demand goods and services, so jobs are created to accommodate them. In the end, they cause no net change in unemployment.

Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.

Wow. Private currency is a form of terrorism. I didn’t know that. You learn something new every day, I suppose. Hey don’t look now, but there’s been an active terrorist cell in Ithaca, New York, for the past 20 years.

Only 65,000 work or H1B visas are issued each year and in the past there have been as many as 145,000 applications so even after a worker has passed the employment tests and been hired, the visas are only issued after a lottery. “You have about a one in three chance of getting one,” she says. For a company that has spent considerable time and money recruiting, interviewing and hiring a worker and filling out all the forms and paying the fees, that means it all could come down to the luck of the draw.

The Government Accountability Office tested the government’s Energy Star program with phony products and found it essentially to be a rubber stamp–except that only 15 of 20 products were accepted and two were rejected. I wish they’d explained the rejections in a little more detail.

Every time a libertarian stays in the closet, an angel gets its wings ripped off.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Revenue has already shed the pretense that its residents do not live in an Orwellian State. The voice should have gone on to say: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse, Tom. You know you have a civic duty to understand and abide by Pennsylvania’s Personal Income Tax Code. We’ve even put it online for you.”

Former Philly DA Lynne Abraham: "Welcome to Philadelphia, Light Up a Joint."

The national debt is pushing $13,000,000,000,000. Since the beginning of last November, the federal government spent has $1,000,000,000,000 more dollars that it did not have. I tell you, this health care bill had better take a huge-ass chunk off of the deficit, and fast.